Cob: Cold Temps

[Howard]

As an architect, myself, I agree with you BB that we need to have very good
standards in our buildings, especially around issues of structural integrity, and I
hope we can avoid any disasters.  And I do hope folks will ask an engineer if there
is a question. However, I'm also sure there are some basic rules one can follow to
generally avoid trouble.

As for your comment:  "I keep hearing about natural structures that are hundreds of
years old, but lets talk about the news stories of earthquakes in third world
nations, stories with video of a pile of rubble where a whole village stood, and
wailing mothers digging for the bodies of their families."  I have to say this:

I'm not sure which videos you are talking about but if they are the ones from India
a year or so ago that killed nearly 30,000 people, it was the new concrete
industrial housing that collapsed in the earthquake, not the old earthen homes with
thatch roofs.  And similar cases abound, BTW.  The earthquake in Turkey some years
ago is another one.  It may be that they did not build the concrete industrial
housing with the same standards you would have, perhaps, but we do have THAT to
point out to the forces opposed to natural building.  The earthen homes I've seen in
piles of rubble on video are due to bombings by US or Israeli military.

Howard Switzer